On the media: In search of ‘truthiness’ of the TWC, DirecTV, SportsNet L.A. fiasco

It’s a line Stephen Colbert used the other night before he launched into another mock tirade about things that get his trousers in a bunch. Such is comedy fodder.

We fear it also applies to this real-world, knotted-up negotiations between Time Warner Cable and DirecTV, deciphering what’s real, what isn’t and why fans at home who haven’t got the Dodgers-owned SportsNet L.A. channel may not really care at this point about the serious distribution SigAlert that affects all kinds of traffic patterns in their lives.

Try consuming a heaping helping of Berry Almond Chilled Swiss Oatmeal at the local Corner Bakery while also digesting a full-page newspaper ad that Time Warner Cable took out to take direct hits at DirecTV with a list of “facts” that dispute all kinds of information that has already been put out by the media.

It’s all just a bit hard to swallow. There is a real chillng effect here, as well.

Since it’s more of our nature to get down and fact-check, sort out what’s being force-fed to consumers as a combination of truth, fiction or some of each, this was a challenge.

But what’s really going on now? Is TWC trying to scare us into believing we’ll never see the Dodgers again unless it puts DirecTV’s heels to the fire? Are we so distressed at this point that we’ll simply believe this list of protests posted in a newspaper ad and thrown into our driveway and just give in, signing up for TWC so we don’t have to listen to the bickering any longer?

“We really felt there was a large amount of misinformation to be disseminated and we wanted to state the facts in the most succinct way possible for fans to get the correct information,” TWC Sports President David Rone said.

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So we are now told by TWC in this interesting public marketing tactic that: a) it is not asking for $5 a subscriber, and the undisclosed fees they’re asking for are lower than some other regional sports networks; b) DirecTV hasn’t been actively negotiating; c) DirecTV raised money from a sports net surcharge and hasn’t refunded any of it to its subscribers who don’t get SportsNet L.A.; and d) DirecTV actually said it wants the flexibility to drop the Dodgers channel if the team doesn’t play well.

Some of that seems so preposterous that our gag reflexes aren’t even functioning at this point.

“We’re not in the business of lying to customers,” Rone said. “All of these things we state are facts. We want to make sure DirecTV’s customers understood what the truth was after things DirecTV has either misstated or put out in the press.”

The fact is, DirecTV isn’t going to publicly dispute point-by-point any of TWC’s claims. Sources at the El Segundo-based company say while management might not agree with what TWC has put out there, they aren’t going to engage them in a war of media words.

Other than, for what it’s worth, issuing a new statement:

“DirecTV hopes to enable any Dodger fan who wants Time Warner Cable SportsNet LA to have it so those who’ve remained most loyal to the team can see what remains of this pennant chase. Time Warner Cable paid an all-time high of eight-and-a-half billion dollars to create a one-team, one-sport channel with games only half the year, and yet still demands everyone else bear the entire financial responsibility for their excess.

“Nothing has changed since the start of this season except for Time Warner’s willingness to spend millions more of its customers’ money on advertising to upset the same fans whose loyalties it’s unnecessarily tested during the entire first half.”

As a strategy that could inflame the negotiations, you may wonder why TWC would go this direction at this time. Except it makes sense.

TWC has to rattle more cages, aggravate the marketplace and create some conflict as the second half of the Dodgers’ season starts, trying to rally fans into buying into a palatable reason for dropping their current cable or dish system and join TWC because that’s probably the way it’ll be for the next few months.

Rone said asking DirecTV or any of the other cable systems who are trying to follow their lead to get into a public debate isn’t really why they took out the ad.

“How this was going to play out in the minds of the distributors is secondary,” he said. “This is a message for Dodgers fans and DirecTV customers who are fans, to let them know, to set the record straight.

“We felt it was necessary to make sure the fans understood things told to them that were misrepresented. We want to give them a correct characterization of those issues.”

Rone also clarified a statement he made in a report this week on KPCC-FM about whether he thought non-Time Warner Cable subscribers would probably go the rest of this season without seeing Dodgers games.

“I really have dual emotions on this,” he said. “I am and have to remain incredibily optimistic for those fans who deserve this content, and be optimistic for them that this situation gets solved. But at the same time, from my business experience, and from colleagues who say to us when a distributor behaves in the manner that DirecTV is behaving, that’s an indicator that we have to be pessimistic about whether they change their tune and engage with us.”

Most fans in Southern California have more than dual emotions. They’re going through 12-step programs to sort through anger, denial and acceptance before chosing a method of revenge.

The only thing we know for sure: Friday’s Dodgers-Cardinals game from St. Louis is on SportsNet L.A. Saturday’s game is on Fox Sports 1. Sunday’s game is on ESPN. And the Dodgers’ KLAC-AM (570) ratings are jumping as much as 78 percent over the previous season (a 3.3 in April 2013 to 6.5 in April ’14, according to Arbitron numbers).

And by this time next year, the debate could be handed off to Comcast (which is trying to buy out TWC) and AT&T (in the process of buying DirecTV), and a whole new round of fear, frustration and a strategy to fight back will surface.

Trying to filter out at this juncture who’s giving it to us straight, we circle back to Colbert. He coined the phrase “truthiness,” derived from watching those bloviate on other TV channels in making assertions without much regard to evidence, logic or facts.

And the truth as we seem to know it is that loyaties are being tested and the long-term effect is fragile at best.

That’s really the scary part to all this.

RECORD, PAUSE, DELETE

Gauging the media’s high- and low-level marks of the week, and what’s ahead:

DEMOTION, PROMOTION, COMMOTION

The lead to a blog post by the Washington Post’s Cindy Boren reads: “The news Monday was stunning. Pam Oliver is being moved to Fox Sports’ No. 2 announcing team and will work the sidelines no more after this coming NFL season.” Not so stunning: Erin Andrews is replacing Oliver on the Fox No. 1 team with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman this fall. Oliver and Andrews are about as opposite as you can get on sideline substance, self-promotion and media credibility. Andrews, for example, spoke this week about the move during a media entertainment junket at the MLB All-Star game in Minneapolis where she was promoting her association with a yogurt company. She also pointed out this new gig would not interfere with her work on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars.” Whew. Oliver explained the move to Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch as something that was “a little shocking” to her as well, as she had hoped to stay on instead for her 20th season instead of going to Fox and FS1 as a “senior correspondent.” Fox execs justified the move as playing to Oliver’s strengths. Questions will, and have to, be raised about the decision. Thankfully, as Boren points out, there’s already some heady debate raised by Jeff Pearlman (in a blog post at www.JeffPearlman.com titled “Women in sports media: intelligence and talent lose out — yet again”) and by CBSChicago.com columnist Dan Bernstein (“Fox needs to park Andrews somewhere that can possibly validate her acquisition, and this move helps promote her further out of harm’s way. To say she’s a lightweight would be taking it easy on her, as her level of discomfort has been obvious in any role so far, whether behind a desk or in a dugout. She just isn’t very good at anything and doesn’t offer much of a personality. One doesn’t have to be smart, interesting, clever or funny to generate pageviews, but the camera asks for more.”)